Q8 - Though ice cream is an excellent

[Shiggins]

The author concludes more people are choosing cheddar over ice cream. I believe the evidence is the decline in ice cream sales. Having issues with seeing B as right answer. Is it b/c he is just assuming a relationship of the decline in ice cream solely to cheddar cheese. Need some help, thank you.

[noah]

On this one, you haven't completely nailed the core of the argument - the conclusion is offering an explanation for the change. Here's how I see the core:

Conclusion: an increasing number of people are choosing to get their calcium from cheese instead of ice cream

Premise: farmers report selling more cheese and less ice cream.

What's the gap?

If you can't see it, think of this argument:

People are buying more hybrids than 10 years ago and fewer SUVs. It must be that people are choosing to look cooler by owning hybrids than by owning SUVs.

What's the problem there?

Perhaps folks are buying hybrids because gas costs $4 per gallon now!

Similarly, perhaps people are buying more cheese because of an outbreak in ice cream salmonella. Who knows if the change means anything about people's decisions about calcium intake.

The argument hasn't accounted for other reasons that the change has occurred. That's what (B) says.

(A) is calling into question the premise - that's not really our task here. We have no reason to doubt the farmers.

(C) is tempting - but why would those farmers be biased? Do they gain something from this conclusion? Hmmm.

(D) is the reverse of something we might want to choose - the conclusion assumes that folks think that cheese has more calcium than ice cream, not the other way around.

(E) is suspiciously extreme. It doesn't matter if there is a bit of overlap in the diets.

I hope that helps. Keep an eye out for "explanation conclusions" - they can be tricky.

[Shiggins]

Thank you Noah.

[zainrizvi]

Even though I know that (E) is wrong I have a bit of trouble wrapping my head around the choice. What modifications could you make to (E), or the stimulus, to make it the right choice? Where would the overlap be relevant? Is it it relevant in this situation?

[noah]

I'm generally not a fan of "how can we make this correct" questions (though I do ask them when I teach ), but I like your final question about whether its relevant. That's the point you should walk away with.

The argument is about explaining a phenomenon. The problem with such an argument is almost always that there's another explanation. Does it matter if the phenomenon is a bit different than we think? No - because we've already been told what the phenomenon is. The question is whether from that phenomenon (premise) we can definitively say the explanation (conclusion).

That said, I'll bite on the "what if" question you posed: (E) would be a flaw for an argument that ignores a potential overlap. Perhaps something like this:

40% of people eat ice cream to get their calcium and 25% of people eat cheddar cheese to get theirs. So, 35% of people get their calcium from something other than ice cream or cheddar cheese.

Time to get some ice cream...

[sr]

On this one, you haven't completely nailed the core of the argument - the conclusion is offering an explanation for the change. Here's how I see the core:

Conclusion: an increasing number of people are choosing to get their calcium from cheese instead of ice cream

Premise: farmers report selling more cheese and less ice cream.

What's the gap?

If you can't see it, think of this argument:

People are buying more hybrids than 10 years ago and fewer SUVs. It must be that people are choosing to look cooler by owning hybrids than by owning SUVs.

What's the problem there?

Perhaps folks are buying hybrids because gas costs $4 per gallon now!

Similarly, perhaps people are buying more cheese because of an outbreak in ice cream salmonella.

The argument hasn't accounted for other reasons that the change has occurred. That's what (B) says.

(A) is calling into question the premise - that's not really our task here. We have no reason to doubt the farmers.

(C) is tempting - but why would those farmers be biased? Do they gain something from this conclusion? Hmmm.

(D) is the reverse of something we might want to choose - the conclusion assumes that folks think that cheese has more calcium than ice cream, not the other way around.

(E) is suspiciously extreme. It doesn't matter if there is a bit of overlap in the diets.

I hope that helps. Keep an eye out for "explanation conclusions" - they can be tricky.

I still think B is irrelevant. The stimulus doesn't say a reason for the decrease in ice cream sales. It simply says that since ice cream sales have decreased, people are now getting their calcium from cheddar instead. It doesn't matter WHY ice cream sales decreased. Say they changed ice cream prices to 100 dollars and cheddar was a penny. Then ice cream sales decreased because of price, and everyone bought cheddar instead. But it still remains that people are choosing to increase their intake of calcium by eating cheddar. The only difference is the reason they are choosing to. They are choosing cheddar over ice cream because ice cream is too expensive. There could be many reasons they are choosing cheddar over ice cream. Perhaps they are choosing cheddar because it is fashionable, perhaps they switched to cheddar because its more conveniant. The reason they chose cheddar doesn't matter. All the argument is saying is that they are choosing cheddar over ice cream to fulfill their calcium intake.

[noah]

Say they changed ice cream prices to 100 dollars and cheddar was a penny. Then ice cream sales decreased because of price, and everyone bought cheddar instead. But it still remains that people are choosing to increase their intake of calcium by eating cheddar.

Not necessarily. Perhaps people that's not a choice people made if they chose to eat the cheaper food.

If I switch from a hummer to a prius, am I necessarily choosing to save the environment? No - perhaps I'm choosing the sexier car. Just because the switch has an effect doesn't mean I'm choosing it for that reason.

If the argument concluded "more and more people must be choosing to eat cheese than ice cream" we'd be in much different situation. (We'd then have to consider whether you could have a decline without a large number of people switching.) But once the argument switched into concluding about what folks were thinking, the main gap appeared.

All the argument is saying is that they are choosing cheddar over ice cream to fulfill their calcium intake.

And here's the issue - the argument concludes this, but the only evidence is the switch - we learn nothing about the motivation. Maybe, they're switching, as you noted, because of price.

Good question - I enjoy your critical mind!

[gplaya123]

Hey Noah, I have a quick question.
Now that you went over the core, I see what the question is saying:

The author believes Calcium from cheese is the "sole" factor that caused the decline in ice cream sale, ignoring other alternative explanations.

Well... initially though, I thought the author made an unwarranted assumption, that the "cheese" actually contains calcium... I know it is intuitive to know that... but LSAT is a literal test... you can't just assume cheese has calcium in it unless it says so.
Would you consider this as a flaw but just wasn't in the answer choice?

[noah]

Well... initially though, I thought the author made an unwarranted assumption, that the "cheese" actually contains calcium... I know it is intuitive to know that... but LSAT is a literal test... you can't just assume cheese has calcium in it unless it says so.
Would you consider this as a flaw but just wasn't in the answer choice?

Looking back, that does seem to be another assumption, though I'd say it's another flavor (ice cream flavor? ) of the assumption we've been discussing. In short, is calcium the reason folks are switching to cheese from ice cream? No! There isn't even calcium in there. Nice catch.

Overall, (C) is more LSAT-like than an answer that says "fails to establish that eating cheddar cheese provides calcium" as the latter is less subtle.

[Aquamarine]

I processed POE, chose B and know why it is an answer, but I can't entirely understand why E is wrong. E kept bugging me.
I read the explanation above but I still don't understand why E is wrong.
If more people choose cheddar cheese more than ice cream just as the stimulus said and which means people choose cheese over ice cream, can E be an answer too?
Why can't E be an answer?

Please someone enlighten me.
Thanks!

[Olivia James]

Aquamarine -

I hope this is still of relevance to you.
The issue with answer choice E is that it is not really a flaw in this argument.
Let us put some numbers to this statement -

In the past - 60 people bought ice cream, 40 people bought cheddar cheese and 30 people bought both.
Now - ONLY 20 people buy ice cream, 80 people buy cheddar cheese and 30 still buy both.

Does this ruin the argument's reasoning? More importantly - did he assume in the argument that people who eat cheddar cheese NEVER eat ice cream?
No, I do not think so.

I hope this helps and is a correct explanation -

Good Luck!

[KatiaK713]

Hi,
I was hesitating between E and B, and passed on B because it mentions ice cream, but not cheddar. Were we not supposed to explain both?
Thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

There's no "supposed to" necessarily. On a Flaw question, there are often many different possible ways to describe something wrong with the argument (there can also be more than one thing wrong with an argument).

Our job is just to consider whether each answer is
1. Descriptively accurate
2. Something that represents a complaint about the author's "move" from premise to conclusion

We would not be able to consider (E) because it's descriptively inaccurate.

We can't say that the author assumed "people who eat cheddar NEVER eat ice cream". The conclusion is saying "more and more people are choosing cheddar over ice cream", but that's not committing her to thinking "no one in the universe who eats cheddar also eats ice cream."

I see what you're saying, how we would love for (B) to continue ".... the decline in ice cream and the uptick in cheddar cheese consumption", but it's still accurate to say the author failed to consider alternative explanations for the decline in ice cream, and this is a fair complaint about the move from premise to conclusion.

When author's interpret statistics / funky phenomena / correlations, they assign a specific Causal Explanation for what's going on.

Those conclusions would be totally legit as long as authors were responsible and hedged their wording. If this conclusion said, "Therefore, it may be the case that more and more people are eating cheddar over ice cream", then the argument is totally fine.

It's the author's CERTAINTY about their one, possible explanation that offends LSAT. Really, author? It MUST be that people are choosing to get their calcium from cheddar not ice cream? It's IMPOSSIBLE for anything else to explain the decline in ice cream sales?

[JeremyK460]

Breakdown:
Ice cream is a great source of calcium.
There has been a sharp decline in people buying ice cream.
There has been a sharp increase in people buying cheese.

More people must want to increase their calcium by eating cheese rather than ice cream.

Analysis:
The argument is assuming that cheese, like ice cream, is also an excellent source of calcium.
Maybe this is an insignificant or a complex cause; maybe there’s an alternative explanation as to why people stopped eating ice cream and why people started eating cheese.

Answer Choices:
(A) The reasoning does fail to produce the statistical evidence to support the dairy farmer claim, but that would only validate what seems to be given to me as truth.

(B) This is my analysis. The argument jumps to the conclusion by attributing a cause to the supposed effect. It feels like the regression fallacy. Maybe people stopped buying ice cream but not because they wanted to switch up the source of their calcium intake.

(C) This feels like it describes an inappropriate/unrepresentative sample flaw. There’s no witness testimony that’s used to support a claim.

(D) I would say that this is the opposite of what’s assumed, if anything. The argument actually assumes that people use cheese or ice cream as a source to increase their calcium intake.

(E) This is the opposite of what the argument is assuming. The argument needs to assume that these two categories of people are at least somewhat interwoven. The argument can’t assume that these two groups are mutually exclusive. If the people who buy ice cream are a different group entirely of people who buy cheese, the argument can’t certainly conclude that people are not buying one and switching to the other.